A PARAGLIDER who suffered spinal injuries after falling 50 metres into the side of the Westbury White Horse had a problem with his canopy.

Emergency services, including fire and ambulance crews as well as a coastguard helicopter, were called to reports of a paraglider crash on the White Horse on Tuesday evening at 7.15pm.

Rescuers used rope to hoist the injured paraglider up the hill and he was taken to hospital to be treated for spinal injuries.

The paraglider’s canopy is thought to have partly collapsed, causing him to spiral around 50 metres into the ground.

Damien Dance, fire service manager at Trowbridge, who was at the scene, said: “Fortunately for us, the chap who crashed was part of a gliding club, and one of my colleges at the fire station is member of the same club and witnessed the accident when he was off duty.

“He was able to call us up and tell us all the information and what equipment was needed, which was very useful.

“The paraglider had a partial canopy collapse where he spiralled down and had fallen about 50 metres into the embankment of the hill and had sustained back injuries.

“He is an intensive care unit doctor so he had some idea that he had a spinal injury.

“However, he was well padded up and stayed concious the whole time.

“We used our rope rescue unit to get him back up the hill on a stretcher after assessing if it would be easier to winch him up, but by the time the helicopter could get to us we already had the rope rescue planned.

“We have only been called to about three paragliding accidents in the last three years where gliders have crashed somewhere not accessible.

“There was lots of good multi-agency work going on between the fire service, ambulance services and the coastguard helicopter in this rescue.

“Our thoughts are with the paraglider and his family.”.

Paragliders are often seen above the White Horse, and gliding schools around Wiltshire say it is a safe place to fly.

Lee Bligh, chief flying instructor at Cloudbase Paragliding in Swindon, said: “This was a very unfortunate accident, but the sad thing is is that you only hear about our sport when there has been an accident.

“You don’t hear abut the hundreds of successful hours we have flying.

“The risks are the same as driving a car.

“We have a lot of paragliders flying at Westbury White Horse, however the conditions for paragliding have been difficult with the heat, as this causes turbulence.”